KYIV — At least 50 people were killed and 271 wounded when Russia hit a military institute in Ukraine’s central town of Poltava with two ballistic missiles on Tuesday, the war’s deadliest single attack this year.

Photographs posted on social media showed several bodies of young men on the ground covered in dust and debris, with the badly damaged side of a large building behind them. Reuters could not immediately verify the images.

“The Russian scum will definitely be held accountable for this strike,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said on the Telegram messaging app.

He ordered a prompt investigation, saying the strike damaged a building of the Military Institute of Communications.

In his nightly video address, delivered later in the evening, Mr. Zelensky put the death toll at 51.

“It is known that there are people under the rubble of the destroyed building,” he said. “Everything is being done to save as many lives as possible.”

The emergency service gave a death toll of 50. Poltava Regional Governor Filip Pronin said 15 people may still be under the rubble.

Ukraine’s land forces said military personnel had been killed. They did not specify how many of the victims were from the armed forces, but the attack was a major blow to Kyiv as it tries to bolster its ranks to hold off a more powerful enemy.

“The Land Forces Command is conducting an investigation to determine whether enough was done to protect the lives and health of the soldiers at the facility,” a statement said.

The use of ballistic missiles, which hit targets hundreds of kilometers away within a few minutes of their launch, meant the victims had little time to find cover after the air raid siren sounded, the Foreign Ministry said.

“This is a stunning tragedy for all of Ukraine. The enemy hit an educational institution and a hospital,” Ukraine’s first lady, Olena Zelenska, wrote on X.

Some Ukrainians left worried messages on the institute’s Facebook page seeking information about their loved ones.

“One of the institute’s buildings was partially destroyed, and many people were trapped under the rubble,” the defense ministry said on Telegram.

“Thanks to the coordinated work of rescuers and medics, 25 people were rescued, 11 of whom were taken from the rubble. The rescuers are currently continuing their work.”

Russia did not immediately comment on the attack.

INCREASE IN MISSILE STRIKES
Russia has intensified its missile and drone attacks on Ukraine 2-1/2 years into the full-scale war.

Last week Ukraine was pummeled with the heaviest bombardment to date, and on Monday ballistic and cruise missiles targeted Kyiv causing loud explosions.

Ukraine targeted Russia with more than 158 drones during the weekend, damaging an oil refinery near Moscow and a power station.

Fighting has intensified over the past month, with Russian forces advancing in eastern Ukraine, while Kyiv’s troops have mounted their first large-scale cross-border assault into Russia. Moscow has vowed to retaliate for the incursion into the Kursk region.

Mr. Zelensky repeated calls for more Western air defenses and urged allies to allow their long-range weapons to be used for strikes deeper into Russian territory.

“We keep telling everyone in the world who has the power to stop this terror: Air defense systems and missiles are needed in Ukraine, not in a warehouse somewhere.

“Long-range strikes that can protect us from Russian terror are needed now, not some time later. Unfortunately, every day of delay means loss of life.”

In Poltava, some 300 km (186 miles) southeast of Kyiv and 120 km (75 miles) to the nearest Russian border, Governor Pronin said about 150 residents had donated blood for the wounded.

Defense Ministry spokesman Dmytro Lazutkin told national TV that classes at the institute were underway at the time of the attack. He said the alarm sounded at 09:08 local time (0608 GMT) prompting people to rush to the shelter.

“A few minutes after the air alert, explosions sounded,” he said, adding that there were no parades going on at the time.

It was not the first time Russia has struck military facilities away from the frontlines, causing mass casualties. Russia said in May 2022 that it hit a training ground for reserve forces in the town of Desna where Ukraine said 87 people were killed. In March that year, 35 people died in a Russian strike on a military base in the country’s west. — Reuters

CAIRO — Israeli forces killed at least 35 Palestinians across Gaza on Tuesday as they battled Hamas-led militants, Palestinian officials said, but brief pauses in fighting allowed medics to conduct a third day of polio vaccinations for children.

Among those killed were four women in the southern city of Rafah and eight people near a hospital in Gaza City in the north, the Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said.

Later on Tuesday, an Israeli airstrike killed nine Palestinians inside a house near Omar Al-Mokhtar Street in the middle of Gaza City, medics said.

Another strike hit near a college in Sheikh Radwan, a northern suburb of the city. The Israeli military said the strike targeted Hamas militants operating from a command center embedded inside the former Nama College.

Others were killed in separate air strikes across the territory, medics said.

The Israeli military said it killed eight Palestinian gunmen, including a senior Hamas commander who took part in the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel, at a command center near the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City.

A statement said Ahmed Fozi Nazer Muhammad Wadia had taken command of a “massacre of civilians carried out by Hamas terrorists” in Israel’s Netiv HaAsara community near the Gaza border. There was no response from Hamas.

The armed wings of Hamas and Islamic Jihad said they were battling Israeli forces in the Zeitoun suburb of Gaza City, and also in Rafah and Khan Younis in the south.

Nevertheless, the World Health Organization (WHO) said that it was ahead of its targets for polio vaccinations in Gaza on Tuesday, day three of a mass campaign, and had inoculated abou t a quarter of children under 10.

The campaign, which was hastened by the discovery of the first polio case in a Gazan baby last month, relies on daily eight-hour pauses in fighting between Israel and Hamas militants in specific areas of the besieged enclave.

Diplomatic efforts to secure a permanent ceasefire and release foreign and Israeli hostages held in Gaza and return many Palestinians jailed by Israel have stalled, however.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that Israeli troops would remain in the Philadelphi corridor on the southern edge of Gaza, one of the main sticking points in reaching a deal to end the fighting and return hostages.

Hamas, which wants an agreement to end the war and see Israeli forces out of the Gaza Strip, says such a condition, among some others, would prevent a deal. Mr. Netanyahu says war can only end when Hamas is eradicated.

POLIO CAMPAIGN
The United Nations (UN), in collaboration with the local health authorities, embarked on the third day of a complex campaign to vaccinate around 640,000 children in Gaza against polio.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described pauses in fighting to allow the vaccinations as a “rare ray of hope and humanity in the cascade of horror,” his spokesperson said on Tuesday.

“If the parties can act to protect children from a deadly virus… surely they can and must act to protect children and all innocents from the horrors of war,” UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said.

Rik Peeperkorn, WHO representative for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, told reporters in Geneva that it had vaccinated more than 161,000 children under the age of 10 in the central area in the first two days of its campaign, compared with a projection of around 150,000.

“Up until now things are going well,” he said. “These humanitarian pauses, up until now they work. We still have 10 days to go.” He said that some children in southern Gaza were thought to be outside the agreed zone for the pauses and that negotiations continued in order to reach them.

Palestinians say a key reason for the return of polio is the collapse of the health system and the destruction of most Gaza hospitals. Israel accuses Hamas of using hospitals for military purposes, which the Islamist group denies.

The war in Gaza was triggered by Hamas’ Oct. 7 rampage in southern Israel, when its fighters killed 1,200 people and captured more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Since then, more than 40,800 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to the enclave’s health ministry. — Reuters